Macking 108

Videos Online
My VCR screwed up and I missed the last episode of 24. No one had taped it, but someone suggested I check Bit Torrent. This is a peer-to-peer network that people can search for current music and TV shows, plus whatever odd stuff people want to make available.
First step was Google, which led to a number of sites, starting with http://tvt.milfclan.com/, where I found the desired episode of 24. Then I needed to find out how to download it, since it wasn't a simple FTP or HTML download. That led me to Version Tracker where a search for Torrent clients led to a freeware one called Tomato, an unofficial client for OSX. Included with the client was an AppleScript called Download Torrent to Here.
The way it works is that the Torrent site lists the items available, and clicking on the link downloads a small file that contains the data that Tomato and other clients need to acquire the file you want. The episode of 24 was about 420 megabytes in size, so obviously this is a pool that modem users cannot play in. It took all night because only a few sites were hosting it but in the morning I had a complete copy of the needed episode, which played perfectly in VLC because, as usual, QuickTime Player couldn't understand the format.
Why Apple can't get its act together in this area is beyond me. There should be NO video formats that QT can't play, since all it requires is a codec plugin. Maybe if Apple would make QT available for Linux, and release some of the source code, we could all benefit.
Violation of copyright? You betcha. But if I didn't, and the person who recorded, converted and posted the show didn't, I would have missed it and too bad for me. Fox, and the MPAA, certainly don't care. As Negativland states on their T-shirt, "Copyright Violation is your Best Entertainment Value."
Bit Torrent is just one of many ways one can acquire all kinds of videos not available through any legal channel. I have copies of the Mr. Hell Show, a Canadian series that ran briefly on Showtime. This uproariously funny adult cartoon series would never have been allowed on American broadcast TV but I can get copies off the Net. Ditto a funny sitcom series called "Puppets Who Kill," about a halfway house for violent puppets. I wonder if Canadians have any idea how much better their broadcast TV is than ours. Other treasures? Negativland's "The Mashin of the Christ," a brilliant assemblage of torture and death scenes of past Jesus movies and cartoons; the 1979 short-lived American series "Quark," starring Richard Benjamin as an interstellar garbage collector (not available on DVD at any price because someone is sitting on it); classic videos from the early MTV days, etc.
If the copyright fanatics were willing to make their holdings available for a fair price at any time to anyone who wanted it, they would get it. They would make money they aren't making now. But they just say No and then go on about their daily lives, forgetting that they have control over something that people want. Their punishment for their shortsighted attitude? We take it anyway.
This is completely different from pirating CDs and songs from artists who have their product on the market right now. One can argue price (CDs are way too high) and honesty (most record companies cheat the artists out of every dime they can) but still, a legal source should be used first.
On top of that, the only way to preserve brilliant works for the future is for there to be many places that copies are kept. Much of our musical heritage was destroyed during WWII when shellac records were collected by the stores and broken up to press new records because war shortages prevented the availability of raw material.
Old movies rot away in their film cans, or are thrown out when dueling lawyers can't agree on who has the right to preserve them.
So if you want to help preserve the future, or simply catch that TV show you missed, get involved with Bit Torrent, and the files available in the various UseNet groups.

Get Some Cables
If you'd rather watch this stuff on your TV instead of your screen, you will need to connect them together. There are certain kinds of cables that work with PowerBooks; desktop units have other needs.
First, you need an audio cable with a mini-phono plug on one end. This is the kind of plug you see on headphones. The other end needs to be a pair of RCA jacks, which are used on the back of virtually all audio equipment. For the video signal, a single cable of the same length as the audio cables with an RCA jack on each end, is the minimal need. To plug this into your PowerBook, use the adapter shipped with it. This is the white one that plugs into the mini-VGA or mini-DVI port. You probably wondered "What's this?" when you first opened your unit and then put it in a "safe place."
That same adapter also has a port for an S-Video cable. This is preferable to the RCA video cable because it does a better job of handling color variations between the digital signal in the Mac and the analog TV interpretation. Most TVs made in the last 10 years have an S-Video port in the back. Unless you will be placing your PB on top of or next to the set, you should plan on a 12-foot cable.
Monster Cables is a site that will teach you all about the different kinds of cables and which is used when. You can buy from them, or from any home-theater retailer.
They make an all-in-one 12" cable that has video, audio and S-Video all together so you can just plug in the parts you need. They have an entire line of products designed for PowerBooks and iPods too so go check out their site.
iMacs may be a little trickier, but only because you will need to buy your own VGA to S-Video converter. There is a port in the back of all but the very oldest models for this. In all cases, using the port will activate the Monitors preference pane or control panel and you can use it to either mirror what is going on the main screen or isolate it as a separate screen. Due to the fact that most TVs overscan the image, your menu bar will probably not be visible on screen. The marketing departments force the engineers to do this because they are afraid of complaints from people who would object to a small black border around the TV picture: "They're cheating us! Part of the screen is being wasted!!" This is the same kind of thinking that causes editors to chop off the sides of a movie image instead of just putting black bars at the top and bottom of the screen and showing you the entire picture. This is known as "pan and scan."
Desktop Macs usually have no output besides the main video card. Most G4s with a DVI port also have a VGA port as well, and you can use that for your video feed. But if you don't have that you will need to buy another video card, so you might as well make sure you get one with all the video/audio in-and-out ports in case you ever decide to record video into your Mac. (The FireWire port is fine for this if you have a digital video camera.) All Macs have a headphone jack so getting sound out is not an issue but serious audiophiles prefer USB-based sound hardware because they can hear the minimal noise and distortion introduced through the headphone port.

InDesign User Group
There is a new User Group in town, this one focusing on the page-layout program InDesign from Adobe. Meeting each month on the second Wednesday (for now) at 6:30, the group exists to share tips and information, hear from industry experts and network. The group is officially supported by Adobe and is one of several chapters around the country, with more to come.
I went to the first meeting and learned one important piece of info: ID has the capability of supporting XML as an alternative to FrameMaker, now abandoned on the Mac.
Gabriel Powell, the organizer, says Adobe is intent on positioning ID as a replacement for FM and users of the older program should take a serious look to see if ID can indeed meet their requirements.
For more information, contact Gabriel at portland_idug@comcast.net and visit the official site.

Another VGA-ADC Converter
This time it's Dr. Bott, releasing a converter ($299) that is designed not only for the original 12" PowerBook, but for ANY Mac that has a video card strong enough to support the Apple 17" Studio Display (TFT). I just plugged it in and it worked. Although the literature says that OS 10.2 or later is required, they claim it works on some 9.1 or later Macs.
That would be really cool for beige G3 owners but, sadly, no dice. There was no way I could make the display light up, either as a primary or a secondary monitor on my own beige G3. Also had no luck on a G3 iBook, either. Still, it's targeted at all the Rev. 1 PowerBooks like mine, and there are a lot of them available, getting cheaper by the day.

More SGI News
There must be a lot of SGI 1600 displays out there, because Dr. Bott has also entered the market to support it with a product called the SGI Saver ($249) that converts the DVI signal used by every PowerBook (except for the 12" Rev. 1 and the oldest TiBooks) to the obsolete LDI standard used by the SGI. If you have a G4 or G5 with an ADC port, the optional DVI Extractor ($35) will adapt the port.
And no, there isn't any way to chain up the whole mess to use an SGI with a VGA PowerBook. But I did ask.

Avoid Office 2004
Microsoft screws up yet again. There are so many problems with the upgrade there isn't space to list them here; they take up an entire user forum on Macintouch. The biggest reason not to get it is simply this: Three installs and you're out. How many times have you had to erase and install fresh? Replace your hard drive? No excuses; if you need to perform a 4th reinstall you must rebuy the program.
It's possible that you can back up and restore with a tool like Carbon Copy Cloner, but don't count on it. The hacker community needs to find out just what backup/restore programs will work and which won't, and then crack their damn scheme. Since the early reports are showing that it is inferior to Office for X, you should be able to stick with that for years. PowerPoint is noted as a special failure: much slower, won't run QuickTime imports well, problems updating documents, etc. Fortunately you can dump PPt completely and just use Apple's Keynote. I will, however, credit PPT with one innovation: Instead of just mirroring a projected presentation, your Mac screen will also show the next and previous slides, and comments about the slides which you can use as a form of "cheat sheet" reference for your lecture. Apple should steal that idea for Keynote!
Better snag that copy of Office for X while there are a few still on the shelves. Wait much longer and your only hope will be Ebay.

Update 10.3.4
For once an update with few glitches. You have probably been notified by Software Update about this but if you have not yet updated, it's okay. As usual, the update is multi-megabyte in size so you modem users are left out again. The simplest way to get this is to take your PowerBook or iBook to a cyber cafe and access their broadband. If you don't have an AirPort card, most of the sites will also have an Ethernet port you can plug into.
But what if you don't have a portable? You really need to keep up with these updates anyway. If your Mac is transportable at all, like an iMac, then bring that to the site. (Check with the cafe manager to see if it's okay.) Two that come to mind are the Fireside Cafe on SE Powell and the Urban Grind coffeehouse on NW Oregon St. Also, many Kinkos Copies have wireless access and are used to people using their access for free. But if you have a big old G4 or G5 and a CRT monitor or 23" Studio Display you aren't going to be schlepping that around. What you should do is connect to the Net, run Software Update and just write down the names and version numbers of any suggested updates. Then find a Mac user with broadband and go to their house with a blank CD. Log into Apple's web site and search for the update installers and just download them without installing. Make a copy of them on CD and delete from your friend's machine. Take that home and run the updaters manually, one at a time. You need to do this because those updates are important. I always carry them with me so that I can install them for my clients who don't have broadband.

No Microsoft products were used in the production of this column.

email mp at moonmac dot com. (I took out the mailto link because that's how the spammers find me.)